Men's Top 25 Roundup: Providence upsets No. 8 Villanova

Thursday

Jan 27, 2011 at 12:01 AM

PROVIDENCE, R.I. — Marshon Brooks scored 20 points and Providence upset a ranked team for the second time in five days with a win over No. 8 Villanova.

The Friars had gone 51 weeks and 17 games without a Big East victory before beating No. 19 Louisville 72-67 on Saturday but now have won two straight conference games. On Wednesday, they never trailed as the Wildcats couldn’t mount a serious comeback.

Providence (13-8, 2-6 Big East) led 34-25 at halftime and stretched the margin to as much as 18 points on a 3-pointer by Bryce Cotton that made the score 74-56 with 2:50 left.

Villanova (17-3, 5-2) was led by Maalik Wayns with 18 points and Antonio Pena with 17.

The Wildcats were coming off an 83-72 upset at No. 3 Syracuse on Saturday night and had beaten the Friars in their last eight meetings since a loss on Feb. 11, 2004. But Villanova’s top two scorers, Corey Fisher and Corey Stokes, only had seven points each and the team shot a season-low 32.5 percent from the field. Its three losses have come in its worst shooting games.

The Friars weren’t much better, hitting only 37.3 percent of their shots. But they made 8 of 26 shots from 3-point range, while the Wildcats missed their first seven and finished at 4 of 22.

Against Syracuse on Saturday, Villanova had hit 50 percent of its shots while Wayns and Fisher made 6 of 7 shots from behind the arc in the first half. On Wednesday, Wayns was 2 for 4 on 3-pointers, but Fisher missed all four of his attempts and Stokes went 1 for 9.

Providence charged into a 6-0 lead on 3-pointers by Gerard Coleman and Vincent Council, who each scored 16 points. It was 8-4 before Villanova tied it 8-all when Pena converted offensive rebounds.

But when Duke Mondy sank a 3-pointer just 5:52 into the game, Providence had the lead for good, 11-8. An eight-point run capped by Council’s basket made it 24-14 with 6:16 left in the half.

•No. 21 Georgetown 77

St. John’s 52

WASHINGTON — Hollis Thompson responded to his benching with 15 points and six rebounds, and No. 21 Georgetown brought its Jersey success home to a snowbound nation’s capital with a win over St. John’s.

Jason Clark added 16 points and Austin Freeman had 14 for the Hoyas (15-5, 4-4), who shot 51 percent to win their third straight and finally pull even again in the Big East standings. The turnabout that started last week with wins at Rutgers and Seton Hall had a homecoming as emphatic as the two-handed, rim-hanging dunk by Thompson that pushed the lead to double digits for the first time late in the first half.

Justin Burrell had 12 points and eight rebounds for St. John’s (11-8, 4-5), losers of five out of six after starting 3-0 in conference play. Dwight Hardy, averaging a team-high 14.7 points entering the game, went 4 for 16 from the field and finished with 10 points.

The Red Storm were playing the seventh game of a brutal eight-game stretch against Top 25 opponents, a streak that began with a 61-58 win over Georgetown at Madison Square Garden on Jan. 3. St. John’s has lost 32 in a row on the road to ranked teams, its last win coming in 2002.

Thompson, a sophomore forward whose play has been as inconsistent as Georgetown’s as a whole, wasn’t in the starting lineup for the first time this season. He was replaced by the brute strength of freshman Nate Lubick, making his first collegiate start. Lubick promptly committed four turnovers in the first half and finished with six points and six rebounds, while Thompson went 5 for 6 from the field and had his most rebounds in five games

The sparse crowd that made it to the arena had to brave an afternoon of thundersnow, a rare phenomenon that apparently doesn’t mesh well with a Red Storm. St. John’s shot only 33 percent in the first half and went the final 5:01 without a basket during a 10-0 Georgetown run that gave the Hoyas a 40-27 lead at the break.

The sophomore point guard finished with 14 points as the Cardinals (16-4, 5-2 Big East) rallied from an 11-point second-half deficit to post their second down-to-the-wire victory in the last two weeks.

West Virginia’s Dalton Pepper tried to answer Siva’s shot, but his rushed 3-pointer was well off as the horn sounded.

Chris Smith led Louisville with 15 points and Preston Knowles added 10, but it was Louisville’s defense that led the comeback.

The Mountaineers (13-6, 4-3), playing without suspended leading scorer Casey Mitchell, made just two field goals over the final 15 minutes. Joe Mazzulla led West Virginia with a career-high 18 points, all in the first half.

Despite their offensive woes, the Mountaineers had a chance to win it late. Kevin Jones hit a hook shot in the lane with 41 seconds left to give West Virginia the lead.

Louisville’s Terrence Jennings had a perfect chance to answer but rushed a wide-open layup. West Virginia’s Darryl Bryant missed two free throws with 25 seconds left, giving Louisville one last opportunity.

After a timeout, Siva dribbled the ball at the top of the key and tried to get the ball to Knowles hoping to duplicate a play that worked to perfection in a win over Marquette on Jan. 15.

Knowles took the ball, drew three Marquette defenders and fed Kyle Kuric for the game-winning layup. This time, the Mountaineers swarmed Knowles and Siva opted to attack the rim. He sliced through two West Virginia players and spun the ball off the glass.

•No. 16 Minnesota 81

Northwestern 70

MINNEAPOLIS — Blake Hoffarber scored 20 points while playing point guard in place of Al Nolen, Trevor Mbakwe rammed his way to 18 points and 14 rebounds, and 16th-ranked Minnesota beat Northwestern.

Mbakwe got his 12th double-double of the season while matching his career high in points and moving back in the starting lineup for the first time in four games, helping the Gophers (16-4, 5-3 Big Ten) win their fourth straight despite the loss of their steady senior leader Nolen, who broke his right foot last weekend.

Colton Iverson added 15 points, Ralph Sampson III had 14 points and the Gophers started a parade to the free throw line for a season-high 46 attempts. They drew 32 fouls on the Wildcats (13-6, 3-6) and wore them out with hustle, muscle and decent passing despite a struggle to shoot from outside the lane and only eight healthy players in the rotation.

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